Some of the modern generation of mobile electronic devices include geographical location sharing capabilities using GPS or other location-determining technologies. Examples of these mobile electronic devices include GPS-enabled wireless communication devices, PDA Pocket PCs or tablets, GPS-enabled smart phones or cellular phones, and GPS-enabled cameras. These devices can be made “location aware” by use of a GPS receiver that is either embedded as a GPS chipset or connected externally.
Alternatively to using GPS based technologies, a mobile device can determine its geographic position using other locating methods. Often referred to as positioning, with control plane locating, a service provider can determine the location of the mobile device based on the radio signal delay of the closest cell-phone towers. GSM localization involves finding the location of a mobile device in relation to its cell site using various means of multilateration of the signal from cell sites serving a mobile phone. Local-range technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, infrared and/or RFID/Near Field Communication technologies can also be used to match devices to nearby services of known location.
As illustrated in FIG. 1 (prior art), an exemplary mobile device 100 with location-determining capabilities can communicate over the air via a wireless network 110 having a base station 120. The mobile device 100 can also communicate with, and receive GPS coordinates from, a GPS satellite 130.
Many mobile devices also include a motion detector module. The motion detector can include a motion sensor, for example, an accelerometer; a device used to determine the orientation and measure the magnitude (i.e. velocity) and direction of the acceleration of the device. Additionally a pedometer may also be included; a device that counts each step a person takes by detecting the motion of the person's hips.
Computer-implemented software applications are available for mobile devices which allow a user to store a current geographic location in memory for future retrieval. An example of such an application is “Where's My Car?” This application allows a user to manually enter and save the current location of the mobile device as a parked position of their vehicle. When returning to the vehicle, the application will retrieve and display the saved parked location, and launch the built-in maps application to navigate the user to the vehicle. One of the deficiencies of this application is it requires explicit instructions from the user to save the location information for the parked vehicle.
Other known applications rely on communication between the vehicle and its associated electronics and the mobile device. An example of such is detecting when a vehicle's Bluetooth™ speaker/microphone system is disconnected from the mobile device. The application can assume that the vehicle is in a parked position when a Bluetooth™ disconnect occurs and store the current location for future retrieval.
Accordingly, it should be readily appreciated that in order to overcome the deficiencies and shortcomings of the existing solutions, it would be advantageous to have a solution for automatically storing a location without requiring explicit interaction with the user.